Of the far southern sun, reflecting through That Poet's souls are made of. There's a hue So strange, so grand, so fearful, as ye move Perchance the aerial powers Are holding some grand festival to-night, In august ceremonies. It may be The bridal of some bright and loving star; Or possibly the spirits of the air, Are met in a masonic lodge to-night: And though these flames possess not yet the forms Of active intellect, still I believe That the impressions of these mystic scenes With bright unearthly hopes, and visions blest, That rushes through the spirit, as some tone Or when some balmy zephyr bathes the brow; That these things touch some half-unconscious chord Of some bright bliss which Memory's piercing eye, POETS AND POETRY. [We are governed, in the publication of our Magazine, by the most Catholic spirit, and hence we do not erect our own opinions into a standard by which to decide upon the rejection or admissibility of articles, otherwise deemed worthy to appear in its pages. Nor are we in the habit generally of marking our dissent to the sentiments and views of our contributors, in which it is not possible that we should always concur. Nevertheless, we cannot insert the subjoined critique, without saying that we differ, tate calo, from the writer, in his appreciation of the poetical writings of Mrs. Sigourney, Bryant and Willis, and | espe cially that we protest against the harsh and offensive language of the writer, which savors more of personal ill-wil, (though we really believe our friend incapable of any such feeling,) than of sound, discriminating and impartial criticism. We might, indeed, demonstrate the injusture of that criticism, in reference to each of these writers, if we had space to select a few of the many brilliant gems with which they have adorned American literature-or if à were seemly to throw down to our correspondent the contreversial gage. But this we will not do. The fame of the three writers referred to is so firmly established, and their exalted genius so universally acknowledged, that the task would not be less ungracious than superfluous. The prejudiced critic may find indeed defects in their writings-bat so does the astronomer detect, by the aid of his telescope, spots in the sun's disc. We have felt constrained to say thus much, in order to disclaim even a seeming concur rence in the writer's opinions. We will add, that our car. respondent is not less unjust, in his omission of the names of several distinguished American poets, than in his slashing condemnation of the distinguished trio above referred to. Among these we may mention Rufus Dawes, Sands, Pierpont, and Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson-all of them brig stars in the galaxy of American literature-of the three first of whom it were supererogatory to say any thing, a the last of whom we may justly say, that, although she be less known to fame, she does not less deserve to be known, if all the qualities which go to constitute the poet en her to a place in that shining constellation. We need only refer to several contributions from her pen which have ap peared in previous numbers of the Messenger, "Micha Saul's Daughter," "Voice of the Lord," "Ocean Mel>dies," &c. &c.; and "To the Northern Light," in the present number, to vindicate the correctness of our opinion] Ed. Mess. 66 PENCILLINGS ON POETRY. There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know.-Wordsworth. Here you are again with your books of poetry; I she'd think you would get sick of these rhyming authors" Sac was the insipid remark of a friend who entered my ren a few evenings since, while I was reading from the marz page of Coleridge. I did not answer him, for 1 hear st remarks so often that they pass by me “like the idle wind which I regard not." The truth is, comparatively men are acquainted with the meaning or influence of poe try. If you speak of the exquisite charms of the gro poets of the past, you will be laughed at, and most lay be called an imaginative or love-sick being. Poor narrow minded and sordid creatures of time! surely your taste feelings are far from being enviable. Ye are the persees who can look upon the green and beautiful earth, aad sat there is no poetry save in the rhyme of harmonious wor's, ye think all rhyme must be poetry, and all poetry rhyme Poetry is that something which is seen, heard and felt every thing around us; as well in the singing bird or T A poetic A primrose by a river's brim, A yellow primrose is to him, mer breeze, in the nameless flower or the evening cloud, | I do not despise, but I pity that man most sincerely, in as in the realizing sense that nature is the mother-the whose heart Nature can never find her way. Poor mantender and watchful mother of mankind. It is the fashion, or at least customary with the majority to look upon poetry as something purely fanciful-a kind of literary amusement, to be enjoyed when we have nothing else to do. How dif ferent is the truth of this matter! Poetry, in reality, is the mast philosophic study which can engage the attention of man. "Its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative,—not standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion;-truth, which is its own testimony, which gives strength and divinity to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal.” it was a remark made by Milton that poetry was the divinest of all arts; and how does his own poetry prove the assertion to be true! It is the mirror which reflects the true images of nature and man. Its tendency is to exalt and purify the soul—to raise our thoughts from the gross vanities of this world to the contemplation of that which is illumined by the presence of God. It makes man feel that he is but man, and yet a portion of the Invisible. It softens the heart and prepares us to sympathize with the unfortunate, and look with feelings of love upon our fellows. It sheds light on the rugged pathway of life, and seems a foretaste of those pleasures which the good will enjoy in a future world. If these things are true, how despicable, how foolish it is for those who have no taste for poetry to sneer at those who have! In childhood we are all poets; but as we grow up, if we suffer folly and vice to drive from us every vestige of poetic feeling, when we become old we abould blame none but ourselves for our want of that refined and valuable taste. Listen to one of the finest of poets, (Wordsworth,) pointing out those themes on which it is the delight of poetry to dwell. Not love, not war, nor the tumultuous swell Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change, Nor duty struggling with afflictions strangeNot these alone inspire the tuneful shell. But where untroubled peace and concord dwell There also is the muse not loth to range, Watching the blue smoke of the elmy grange Skyward ascending from the twilight dell. Meek aspirations please her, lone endeavor, And sage content, and placid melancholy; She loves to gaze upon a crystal river, Diaphanous, because it travels slowly; Soft is the music that would charm forever; The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly. Many, I believe, are the poets who have never written a single line,-many, who have lived and loved under the immediate influence of truth and beauty, as seen in the great world of nature, who have at last departed hence without leaving behind them an honored name. But they Wire none the less poets after all. They had the faculof reading and enjoying the unwritten poetry of earth and heaven. Unwritten poetry! In what direction can We look without beholding it? Stand we on the lonely sore, and look upon the ocean in a storm; or roam in a st unpeopled wilderness with solitary birds and beasts for companions; retire to some secluded vale, where the birds are singing, and a thousand insects are sporting in sun, on the stumps of decayed trees or in the grass; and Fou cannot but feel the spirit of poetry pervade the place. It is the same, too, when we stand on the cloud-capped mountain, and gaze upon the receding hills and vales, bounded by the cerulean sky. The same, when we gaze pon a bed of violets in the fresh spring, blooming beside me laughing rivulet, more beautiful and gorgeous in Color, and more delicately wrought, than the far-famed robe f Solomon of old. the spirit is one of the purest sources of earthly happiness. This is a truth lasting as the heavens; and though I am an ardent lover of written and unwritten poetry, I am not afraid or ashamed to acknowledge it. Never I will my self-respect be lowered in the least, by confessing my unbounded admiration for the sublime and loud sounding tones of the Psalms of David-the pious and pathetic complainings of Job-the Song of Solomon, or the poetic histories of the Prophets and the Apostles, as recorded in the Bible. And of Poetry, written by the uninspired! I cannot help admiring The Faerie Queen of Spenser. The controlling combined with a sense of exquisite pleasure. The lanpresence of this poem is the delicate love of the beautiful, guage is copious and various, and, from the commencement to the end, proves the author to have possessed an infined! Above all, how noble and soul-satisfying is the exhaustible imagination. As a whole, how perfectly rethe finest feelings of his soul brought into active play? moral inculcated! Who can read Spenser, and not have unbounded knowledge of the human heart, and a genius to And there, too, is Shakspeare, who possessed an almost delineate the same, transcendent, powerful. Only look at his historic plays, his Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Romeo and Juliet among the tragedies, and his TemYou Like It, Twelfth Night, and Two Gentlemen of Vepest, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merchant of Venice, As rona among the comedies. And his sonnets-how perfect, how superior to all other poems of the kind ever produced! Their burthen is the very life-blood of existence-Love and Sorrow, Comfort and Despair. In this place, I cannot refrain from quoting the following lines, which conclude a noble tribute to Shakspeare, written by Charles Sprague, himself an honor to any country, and ranking with the first American poets. Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey; Old ocean trembles, thunder cracks the skies; Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise; Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies keep; And faithless guilt unseals the lip of sleep; Time yields his trophies up, and death restores The mouldered victims of his voiceless shores. The fire-side legend, and the faded page, The crime that cursed, the deed that blessed an age, All, all come forth,-the good to charm and cheer; To scourge bold vice, and start the generous tear; With pictured follies gazing fools to shame, And guide young Glory's foot along the path of fame. I cannot stop here. Another name I love is that of Milton, the king of Epic Poets. Were it possible for the angels of Heaven to be lured to listen to the songs of men, Paradise Lost would sooner have that effect than any other effort of mere human mind. The productions of but few poets deserve to be called sublime; but the above mentioned poem by Milton, is truly and thoroughly so, in every point of view. What could be more so, than the subject itself? But the language too, is sublime and strong-worthy of the mind of the Blind Minstrel. O Milton, Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.-Wordsworth. And he, who wrote the above six lines, author of the refined and gifted mind does not exist in any country. Excursion, is another honored name. I remember to have her writings there is evidence of a peaceful heart and good heard Richard H. Dana affirm it as his opinion that the will to her fellow-creatures; a tender and trusting nature; Excursion was the greatest poem written since Paradise a deep and fervent love for the exquisite and delicate, as Lost. At first I was startled by the assertion, but after-well as the grand, among the works of the Divine Hand. consideration has led me to think so too. The tendency of The characteristics of her poetry are originality, grace, Wordsworth's poetry is to make the reader happy. He is a beauty and vigor. The sons of America, in after time, will priest in the temple of nature. That he is so often quoted, mention her name with pride. (oftener I believe than any other poet excepting Shakspeare) to give strong and apt expression to the thoughts of others is the highest kind of compliment. His poems teem with peculiar beauties, original thoughts, fine sympathies, and grave yet cheerful wisdom. As Talfourd says-" he has done justice to the poetry of greatness, has cast a glory around the lowest conditions of humanity, and traced the subtle links by which they are connected with the highest." True bard and holy! thou art even as one Coleridge is another of my favorites. His genius, considering its greatness, is more diversified than that of any poet who has yet existed. Few have ever accomplished so much in the literary world, when the quantity printed is considered. Those who read the Ancient Mariner, so wild and enthusiastic, and Christabel, so full of supernatural witchery, can readily perceive the fertile imagination and prodigious strength of their author. How exquisite are his Love Poems-and especially Genevieve! And his Hymn to Mont Blanc, how unrivalled its grandeur! The melody of his versification and his mastery of language are wonderful. In his poetry there is an under-current of philosophy, which must be studied to be well understood. In the catalogue of American Poets, the name of Thomas Cole should not be omitted, although he has never attempted a single rhyme. With his pencil, dipped in the colors of the rainbow, he has painted two poems-The Course of Empire, and The Voyage of Life-the echo of whose melody will cease only with the extinction of our country. The title of some of his lesser poems, or painted lyrics, are the Departure and Return, Dream of Arcadia, Past and Present, and the Architect's Dream. It will be perceived, that in the above list of my favorites, I have omitted two prominent personages, namely, Mrs. Sigourney and N. P. Willis. Were we to judge the former by the quantity she has written, we should call ber the greatest poetess that ever lived; but if by the quality, we should call her a mere maker of rhyme. The secret of her popularity is the moral tone of her productions. This we do most highly commend; but we cannot say, with a clear conscience that she possesses much originality or genus. Her last pieces, written in England, are not worthy the album of a school miss. As to Mr. Willis,-if he had not been so severely hasdled by the English Reviews, his name would not now be half so familiar as it is. All that they said of him was and is true. He has not written a good piece of poetry since he left college. Even his best are paraphrases of fine passages in the Bible, which are far more beautiful and musical in the plain original prose translation. His little fooleries among the nobility of England, and his etemptible attacks on men and things in the same country, his ridiculing or writing the misfortunes of a lame man whe had offended him, his spiritedly silly letters, and his horre bad taste in dressing, will constitute the foundation of s immortality. a But I must not continue to particularize. Were I not afraid to tire my reader, I should take pleasure in dwelling upon the characteristics of more of my favorities, but I must be content only to write their names, and they are as follows: Goldsmith, Cowper, Thompson, Beattie, Bloomfield, Scott, Hogg, Montgomery, Wilson, Southey, Barry Cornwall, RoOf the immense number of persons in our country as gers, Campbell, Bowles, Talfourd, White and Keats, Thos. piring after poetical fame, how small the number whose Miller, Mrs. Hemans, and Mary Howitt of England; and names will be recognized in fifty years! If a man has hap Dana, Bryant, Halleck, Drake, Sprague, Hillhouse, Street, pened to produce two or three pretty lyrics, he immediate Longfellow, Perceval, Mellen, Pike, Holmes, Brainard, No- struts among his fellows, as an important personage ble, Mrs. Seba Smith and Hannah F. Gould, of the United public, so fond of being gulled, flatter the poor man, and States. A single word respecting some of these last men-is perhaps persuaded to leave a lucrative employment tioned. T ing. I could mention an hundred names of whom the auov is a perfect portrait. become a mere literary man, then to live in suffering, and The Buccaneer, by Dana, is the finest poem ever produced die a beggar. And this is the result of mistaking one's call on this side of the Atlantic, and the only one in existence worthy to be compared with the Ancient Mariner, which it somewhat resembles. In England, Dana is considered the first American Poet, and has with appropriateness been elassed with such men as Coleridge and Wordsworth. In this country he is not appreciated. It is said he is now engaged upon another long poem, which, when completed, will astonish the literary world. He is a great and good man, and one whom I dearly love, although I have not the luxury and honor of his personal acquaintance. Bryant is incapable of a great poem, but as a lyric poet he has no superior. He is like Claude, a mere copyer of Those poets I have already mentioned, have each cont tributed in various degrees to purify the public taste: make more happy those who read their works; to ins into the heart a love for the beautiful and true; and to m mankind conscious, at once, of their littleness in the sig of God, and of the exalted attributes of the soul. Buti is a melancholy reflection that poetry has too often buen wickedly prostrated to evil purposes. What real bereit can be derived from the writings of Shelley and Moore Alas, for the great Shelley! He was a star, which lead sisters, for a world of cloud and gloom. I do believe th the civilized world would have been much happier at t day, if Byron and Bulwer had never lived. They have proved themselves to be miserable curses to their na and to the world. True, their productions bear the impress of genius; but O, basely prostituted to minister to the depraved appetites of men. I would not trust my heart with the girl who is an admirer of Byron. H****** 19 3 x * haired lady, whom I once loved with all the ardor of a int love. I called upon her one evening, and found her reading the poetry of Byron. As she had always professed herself to be a pure-minded girl, I was much surprised and pained, and manifested my displeasure. "O my dear C," exclaimed she, "I only read the good parts, and omit those that are indelicate and impure." I said nothing to this, but inwardly resolved that I would seek another love, and leave this blighted flower to repose on the bosom of some other one, who could sympathize with her in her taste for poetry. He or she who reads Byron, walks among a thousand unseen dangers, to obtain a few gems, in reality not worth the pains, and surely not the after-agony. How could this young lady omit the infidel and obscene poems of Byron, if she had never read them? Foolish-foolish girl! A word respecting Bulwer. I think that man a greater ass than the companion of Peter Bell, who could assert the opinion that Bulwer is equal to Scott as a poet and a novelist. Some of the best passages in his best plays are plagiarisms from an obscure American poet. All his novels boiled down together do not possess the value of Ivanhoe. Who can conceive the injury this man has done with his pen? Ask the poor-house, the prisons and brothels of our cities! My paper is used up-My pen has reached the jumpingoff-place; and I therefore bid you, my dear reader, an affectionate adieu. THE SNOW FLAKE AND THE WANDERER. ADDRESSED TO THE HARP OF THE NORTH. SONG OF THE FLAKE. I have come, I have come, from my palace of snow, Of the diamond's sparkling light. O'er mountain and valley, o'er land and o'er sea, A silvery mantle to cast. THE WANDERER. Stay, stay in thy course, thou child of the north, And tell if thou caught'st, as thou wanderedst forth, Oft hast thou seen it, thou Beautiful Flake, In years now gone to the past, As thou thine annual journey didst take On wings of the wintry blast? And tell if thou saw'st the frolicsome stream And heard'st the sounds of its babbling strain And mingled its foam with the crystal lake That there in such loveliness lies, The Iris-tinged spray of whose bright merry waves, And tell me if now on my mountain home And if there at morn and evening is heard As the warbled song of some carolling bird VOL. VII-40 Didst thou hear the laugh of a merry child Ringing out upon the air? The laugh of a boy as careless and wild As birds that were soaring there? As the sigh of the mountain wind; Praying that Angels their vigils would keep O'er him in her heart enshrined? Didst thou see a stately queenlike one And behold the beauteous light that shone As thou passed'st by a forest-clad hill Where the oak and maple grow, And forming a bower so verdant and still Their wide-spreading branches throw; Didst thou see one lingering pensively there, Half sad yet pleasing his smile; As though to some object cherished and dear His thoughts had wandered the while? And perhaps thou heard'st him again repeat The words that he uttered there; When we pledged, should glow in the breast of each Sweet friendship's holiest flame; When that mountain bower with the echo rang Of our spirit's merriment; As strains of gladness we cheerily sang, Afar hast thou come, thou child of the north, Then tell how appeared, as thou journeyedst forth, My home, that stands by the mountain side, The stream, the flowers, the grove spreading wide- THE SNOW FLAKE. I have seen, I have seen, thou wandering one, Each spot which thy lips have named; And I threw upon each, as I hasted along, A chaplet of icy-gems. A garland of crystals my fingers wove, The wild merry laugh of thy brother so gay, Nor those tones more sweet than music's soft lay, The birds were not singing their light flowing strains, Nor joyously frolicked that murmuring stream, But I saw as I passed by the window pane, Her arms in fondness were gracefully twined "Father! bless thou, our brother and son." As I hurried along I came to the spot Where was plighted friendship's vow; An ice-jewelled canopy sheltered the grot, Forsaken and silent now. But the silvery moon beamed forth from the sky, Like a bevy of Angels hovering nigh To watch o'er the sacred ground. Again I rode on in my wind-driven car Till thy friend's home I did espy; their chains, dream that they are free; and the black domestics of the South, though their fetters be of flowers, are called slaves! Objects of commiseration as they seem to be, we hazard nothing in saying that an exchange of posi tions with the pretended sympathizers, would be a most unfortunate barter on their part. Behold the picture of Northern freedom, drawn from real life, by one who has seen, if she has not felt, the oppression and degradation and suffer ings she describes.-Ed. Mess. Where I heard, with the soft witching tones of his harp, To MR. T. W. WHITE, "Loved friend of my soul, most cherished and dear, And come, Oh! come back to me." Such I saw and heard, thou wandering one, As my course I hurried full rapidly on, My journey still onward to take; And as he departs, again in thine ear Thus sings the Beautiful Flake : "I have come, I have come, from my palace of snow, Where crystals are glittering bright, Where ice-gems afar the brilliancy throw Of the diamond's sparkling light. And I hasten along, with the storm-king's speed, O'er mountain and valley, o'er land and o'er sea, H. M. D. NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN SLAVERY. It is manifestly not necessarily and always true, as asserted by a poet, that "A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet." For, if it were true, the Fanatics of the non-slaveholding States would assuredly not regard with stoical apathy the actual condition of large masses, constituting a majority of their own population, including the better portion of our race, whose hard servitude is so graphically depicted in the subjoined article, while they are so keenly sensitive in reference to all that pertains to negro servitude in the South. They resemble that hard-hearted sentimentalist, Laurence Sterne, who shed fountains of tears over the cruel treat Editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. We are so inundated with declamations and publications on the domestic slavery of the South, that I feel an irresistible desire to tell you something about the domestic slavery of the North. Permit me, however, to premise that I am no advocate for slavery of any kind. I am not going, however, to say any thing about your institutions; every argument on the subject, pro and con, has been wielded until its edge is completely worn off; and now I believe that every rational person admits that the black slavery of the South, as it now exists, is a necessary evil, which time, philanthropy and generosity alone can cure. But here in the North, where they execrate the southern slaveholder, and pour out oceans of commiseration for the poor negroes, there exists a slavery far more oppressive and cruel. Now, I affirm that man is by nature a despot; that he will lord it over those who minister to his necessities; that he will exact of those who are placed in his power an abject obedience; that where he rules, his will is law, and he will not suffer opposition. I also assume that those who are wholly dependent, and who pay implicit obedience to any lord or master, are slaves. It follows of course that the wives and families of our crying abolitionists are, to all intents and purposes, in a state of slavery. I do not know how you southern husbands treat your wives and children, but I presume that, having other slaves, you allow them the more ease and freedom. Then, while they as well as you are served by slaves, I think there must be more of equality amongst you. ment of an ass, while the sufferings of his own mother tion has a great number of negroes; that they are I am informed that the owner of a large plantaawakened no sympathetic throb in his flinty bosom! The article referred to is from the pen of an accomplished Nor- provided with comfortable habitations, clothing and thern Lady, and, we presume, it faithfully delineates social food, while in return they are required to perform life, as it exists among the masses, on the other side of Ma- a daily task. Undoubtedly their condition is more son's and Dixon's line. We need not say, to those who or less comfortable, as humanity or its reverse prehave had an opportunity of witnessing the practical opera-ponderates in the nature of their owner. Yet set tion of slavery in the South, that its features are not half so revolting as are those developed in the brief sketch of the ting aside the bare word "slave," I maintain that labors and sufferings even of white women in the North. their condition might be envied by thousands of The great difference is, that the Southern institution is our northern free citizens. Our soil, I believe, is stigmatized with the name of slavery, while the Northern is less productive and more encumbered with stone designated by a softer term. "Note the diversity"-for than yours, requiring a far greater amount of labor therein alone doth the difference consist. Substantially to produce less profitable crops. This labor must the same, though attended with more real hardships in the be performed; hirelings are generally scarce, and North, the two systems are judged of by their respective appellations-the white slavery of the North passing unre- their wages considerable; what shall the farmer buked, because the wretched drudges, even while clanking do? He toils from daybreak to dark himself, and |